CHENNAI: The government has amended the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act by introducing additional provisions for the transferable development rights (TDRs) to make it legally binding.The state government has amended Section 35 of the Act wherein the clause pertaining to the transfer of development rights was included. Initially, the government had framed rules for implementing TDR but it did not have statutory backing.Transferrable Development Rights (TDRs) allow governments to acquire land in exchange for development rights.
These rights allow for properties or land to be developed in other areas of the city and those having TDRs can use the rights themselves or sell them to developers.Since the state did not have legal backing for the sale of TDRs, the amendment to the Act could facilitate cheap and rapid land acquisition for the government while redirecting development to other under-developed areas of the cities or important urban goals like affordable housing.
The move to amend the Act comes as the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) is wooing real estate developers to market 20,520 square metre of special transferrable development rights to build homes.Under the the Slum Clearance Board scheme, the TNSCB will identify private developers to provide alternative accommodation to slum-dwellers proposed to be evicted through a bidding process and enter into an agreement with private developer for the provision of alternative accommodation to slum beneficiaries.
The developer who has obtained the special TDR may utilise it himself or transfer it after getting clearance from the member-secretary of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority.TDR, which first emerged as a policy in the United States in the 1960s, was implemented in the state by creating a separate TDR division in the CMDA. However, without legal backing and infrastructure, it had few takers forcing the government to rethink the feasibility of having a separate TDR department in the CMDA.